Bird flu kills one Vietnamese, toll now 43
 By Ho Binh Minh
The Star, 17 June 2007

HANOI (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed one patient in Vietnam, the first death in the country since 2005, state-run television quoted a government report on Saturday as saying. 

The death brought the total death toll from bird flu in Vietnam to 43. 

The patient died last week in the northern province of Ha Tay, television cited the Health Ministry report as saying. It gave no details of the gender of the deceased or how the patient became infected. 

World Health Organization officials in Vietnam could not immediately be reached for comment on the death. 

The last human death from bird flu in the Southeast Asian country took place in 2005, a year in which the H5N1 virus killed 19 patients out of 61 infected cases. 

Vietnamese officials warned early this week that more people could be infected as bird flu among ducks and chickens has spread to nearly one third of the country's 64 provinces and

cities since early May. 

Ha Tay is not in the watch list of infected areas but the province lies next to Hanoi and is the biggest poultry supplier to nearly three million people in the capital. 

The death in Ha Tay takes the number of people in Vietnam confirmed as infected by bird flu since May to five, the Health Ministry report said.  One of the other four, a 30-year-old man whose infection was reported on May 24, was discharged from a Hanoi hospital on June 4 after doctors said they had cured him.  

On Tuesday, health officials said two women, aged 28 and 29, had been infected by the H5N1 virus in the northern provinces of Thanh Hoa and Ha Nam. The two and an infected slaughterhouse worker have been treated in the Hanoi hospital. 

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 191 people out of 313 known cases, according to a tally by the WHO. Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered. 

Vietnam's Animal Health Department said on Saturday that fresh bird flu cases had been found among chickens and ducks in three provinces. All are on the government's watch list of 16 provinces and two cities. 

The H5N1 virus was found in ducks in the northern province of Thai Binh on Monday, in a duck farm in the northern province of Vinh Phuc on Wednesday and in another duck flock in the central province of Quang Nam on Thursday, the department said in a report. 

On Friday it said bird flu had spread to ducks and chickens in a farm in Cao Bang province that borders China's southern province of Guangxi province.